A-level Critical Thinking/Credibility of evidence

Argument: A proposal/conclusion supported by a reason or reasons.
Evidence: Information that supports an argument.
Credibility: The believability of information.*

Source: Where information comes from e.g. a newspaper or a Website.

Truth – Something that is correct
Neutrality – A neutral source is impartial and does not take sides. The neutral source does not favour one point of view over another. Neutral sources are generally seen as more reliable.
Vested Interests – A person or organisation has a vested interest if they have something to gain from supporting a particular point of view. This can cause a person or organisation to lie, tell the truth, distort evidence or present one-sided evidence. Vested interests can increase or decrease the credibility of a source. Vested interests do not necessarily mean that a source will be biased.
Bias – Bias is a lack of impartiality. Biased sources favour a particular point of view. It has been argued that an unbiased source is impossible as everyone has a particular viewpoint

1. Propaganda 2. Bias can be seen in the selective use of language 3. Cultural bias – Ethnocentrism

Expertise – Expertise is specialist knowledge in a particular field. Experts are only regarded as knowledgeable in their own particular field.

However…

- Experts disagree.
- Experts have made incorrect judgements .
- Some have argued expertise is harmful. (e.g. medicine)
- Expertise changes over time.

Reputation – Reputation is the regard in which a person or organisation is held. People can have good or bad reputations based upon their character, organisations can have reputations because of their actions. Newspapers can also have a reputation for quality and accuracy.
Observation- Eyewitness accounts are direct evidence. Evidence from those that saw an event firsthand .

Observations are affected by:

·Senses – short-sightedness would affect an eye-witness account. ·Memory – eye-witness accounts can be poor a long time after an event because memory can fade. ·Bias – Prejudice can distort an observation. ·Prior knowledge – Expertise can affect the way that an eye-witness account is told.

Corroboration – When more that one source of evidence supports the same conclusion. The evidence “points in the same direction”.
Selectivity – How representative information or evidence is. Surveys can be unrepresentative in terms of size and the type of people that they survey. To be neutral selected information should be representative of all of the information available.
Context – The setting in which information has been collected (e.g. a war-zone)

·The historic context – Attitudes can change over a period of time. ·The scientific context – The response to new scientific ideas if affected by what already known (e.g. Darwinism initially discredited). ·The journalistic context – Embedded reporters in a war zone – how accurate can they be? ·Interview context – People respond differently to different interviewers. ·Linguistic context – Language can affect the type of answers people give.

Credibility criteria: Criteria used to assess how believable a source of information is

1. Neutrality – How impartial a source of information is (biased or not). 2. Vested Interest – When a person or organisation have something to gain from supporting a point of view. 3. Expertise – Where the writer of information has specialist subject knowledge in a particular area. 4. Reputation – The regard in which a person of organisation is held in, based on their track record and their status. 5. Observation – A report from someone who directly perceived (heard, saw, felt) an event – an eyewitness account. 6. Circumstantial evidence - Physical evidence supporting the conclusion. 7. Corroboration – Where more than one source of evidence supports the same conclusion. 8. Selectivity – A measure of how representative information is compared with all of the information available. 9. Context – The situation in which information is collected.

An easy, quick way of remembering the main credibility criteria: C onsistency

R eputation
A bility to perceive
V ested interest
E xpertise
N eutrality / bias